Child of Destiny and Fortune
by J-J-Sawyer-Phillips
Summary: After returning to Storybrooke, Emma spends all her time trying to make everyone happy... except for the one who matters most: herself.


It had been absolutely pouring buckets all day, so she had exactly zero excuse for running out of the apartment as she was. The knock-down, drag out fight she'd had with Neal just an hour ago had been the final nail in the coffin for playing nice in their relationship. He'd been pushing her to give them another chance, making her seriously uncomfortable by invading her space and trying to kiss her. _You'll spread your legs like a whore for that fucking pirate, but you won't let me touch you!_

Over the course of their romance, she'd learned to put up with his high-handedness, his condescending insistence that he knew best. Back then he'd always been cool-headed though, so she was genuinely stunned at the rage and hatred that colored his voice instantaneously. He'd gone from zero to furious in less than a second, gripping her arms and shaking her roughly. He wasn't the first man to be violent with her, but all of those who had had been running from the law and all had ended up eating pavement before she handed them over to the cops. She was hurt and surprised, naturally, but not startled or afraid. What had shocked her the most about the situation was Henry running into the room, hands balled into fists. He'd clearly been listening in on their conversation, watching from the shadowed nook beneath the stairs. Not only had he come to Emma's defense, but he'd come to Killian's as well. _He saved Mom, and Gramps and Gram, and even Grandpa! And he would never call Mom a name like that, ever!_

Neverland had changed her son, made him act and think an adult even more than he did before. After throwing Neal out (an impressive feat for an eleven year old), he had just hugged her for a while and then gone after his dad. Alone with her thoughts, Emma found herself thinking more about what he had said before Henry stepped in. She reexamined everything that had happened since she met Killian Jones, especially every interaction they had in Neverland that Neal had seen, looking for an explanation. The more she thought about how relatively platonic they had acted, the more furious she was at what he'd said; and then she realized that the anger she had felt at Neal's accusation-painful as it was to hear how little he thought of her-was just as much for Killian as for herself. He'd been a perfect gentleman here in Storybrooke, treating her like a lady and "courting" her without any hint of taking things further. Never once had he pressured her to give anything more than she was willing to give; rather than making a decision for her, he was content to just be there for her as a friend. _All I want is for you to be happy, darling._

But every second since coming back home, she had been nothing but miserable. Neal was pressuring her; Gold was pressuring her; hell, even her parents were pressuring her (about going back to the Enchanted Forest). Every which way she turned, someone was demanding something of her. Except for Killian when he stopped by the station, or saw her at Granny's, or came by the apartment just to see her and talk to her. In this whole town, it seemed like the only person who was happy with Emma Swan precisely as she was…

That was as far as her thoughts had gotten when she realized exactly what she wanted and needed, when all of her walls and the lies couldn't stand up to the love that was waiting on both sides. She'd run out of the apartment, not even bothering to put on her shoes or change into something warmer than her yoga gear. The cold air whipped around her as soon as she opened the door to the street, but she was already running. The rain stung the exposed skin of her arms, slapped her in the face, but she just sprinted even faster. Before she knew it, she was running along the dock where the Jolly Roger was berthed. She didn't hesitate in her stride once, launching herself over the railing and onto the familiar deck. From there, it was a short flight of steps and some hallway to his room.

She can hear his boots against the floor, his keen ears already alerting him to another presence on his ship. She doesn't even get one knock in, when he pulls the door open and almost collides with her. "Emma, what's-? You are soaking wet, love! What's wrong? Is it Henry?"

She starts laughing at the evident worry in his eyes, which changes to confusion at her outburst. She's finally come to her senses about him, and here he is worried for her and her family. As if the only reason she would choose to seek him out is some sort of disaster. "It's raining."

"Yes, I can see that, lass. But why are you drenched? Where's your coat…and shoes?" He slips his arm around her and pulls her inside, leading her over to the hot stove in the corner that keeps his quarters warm. He moves as if to leave her there and go searching for something to dry her off with, but she catches his hand to stop him.

"I didn't want to take the time to get them and risk it. I realized that I've been an idiot, and I didn't want to give my fears and issues any chance to talk me out of this."

"Out of what, Emma?" And then, just like she did in the jungles of Neverland, she drags his lips down to hers. But her kiss is gentle, shy even, as if she's afraid that she's missed her chance and he'll turn her away. He brings his hand to her face, fingers whispering against her cheek as he returns the tender pressure, lightly flicking her bottom lip with his tongue. When his touch moves to her hair, he's reminded that she ran through a bloody storm to get here and pulls back.

"You'll catch cold, love. Let me get you a towel and something dry to change into." He tries to step away again, but once more she prevents him, lacing their fingers together. Her careful tug has him turning back to her once more. Her eyes never leaving his, she lets go of his hand and drags her shirt off over her head. The wet plop as it hits the floor and the drumming of rain are the only sounds; they've both stopped breathing.

"Come warm me up?" She asks her question while her hands toy with the waistband of her pants, but she looks away nervously at the very end. It breaks his heart to see her this vulnerable, this unsure and uncertain of herself. He closes the distance between them again, cupping her chin in his hand and tilting her face up. She crosses her arms over her stomach as if to try and hide now that she's revealed so much.

"You present me with a particularly uncomfortable quandary, Emma. On the one hand, there is nothing more I'd rather do than precisely what you're asking of me. I'd finish what you've started and never once be persuaded to drag your flesh away from mine. But on the other is my honor as a gentleman. I cannot… I need to know for certain that this is what you truly want, love. Please, just let me care for you first?" His voice is soothing and sincere, but no special ability is required to hear the quiver in his words that signals his wavering control over his better nature. She nods weakly. His actions in this moment, his words only confirm her revelation and make her even more confident that her fears, while very real, are unjustified. He kisses her forehead before heading to one of the chests built under the windows.

"Now, would you care to explain what possessed you to come see me in such weather with no thought to your own health and safety?" He looks over at her, attempting a menacing glare that falls far short of its mark. His rummaging finally produces towels and one of his shirts, black of course.

"Only if you promise me that you'll let me finish talking before you try and step one foot out of your door." He hangs the shirt on a peg near the stove, presumably so that the fabric will absorb some of the heat. He frowns at her request, sensing a trap or trick somewhere in her words, but he knows he has to trust her.

"Very well… I promise not to run off into a bloody hurricane before you have a chance to fully illuminate the reasoning behind your presence aboard my ship." He adds the last part after a particularly stern glare from Emma, who manages to look both adorable and intimidating while also impersonating a drowned rat. He wraps the towel around her shoulders, carefully rubbing her skin dry at her nod.

"Henry said something today and it made me realize that I can't—that I need you. The context for what he said is the part you aren't going to like." He stops, placing the towel around her shoulders and his hand and hook on her hips. She grimaces slightly at the intensity of his focus, but after a pause to chew on her lip she continues. "Neal was over at the loft. We were trying to work out a schedule for when we would each have Henry, but it quickly changed into him trying to get me to agree to go out with him. From there, it was pretty much a given that we would end up fighting."

She reaches up to hold his face between her hands, searching his intent gaze before worrying her lower lip. "He accused me of sleeping with you. More to the point, he got a little physical and used some choice names for the both of us. No! You promised me, Killian Jones!"

Her grip on his face tightens the instant she sees the rage flash-boil through him. "I'm fine. He just grabbed my arms and shook me, and I don't even have a bruise. That doesn't excuse what he did, but I'm alright… The worst part though was that Henry was in the loft. I thought he was at Regina's, but he must have been upstairs or in my parents' room hiding. I've never seen the kid so angry… But after yelling at Neal to let me go and all but throwing him out the door, he said that you didn't deserve to be called names any more than I did, because you had saved all of us and you would never treat me the way he just did."

"Never, lass! I should flay his back for daring to-" Emma places a silencing finger against his lips.

"Maybe later, now let me finish. After Henry left, I sat there for a good hour thinking, and that's when it hit me… Ever since we got back, I've been so busy trying to make everything work out perfectly, to make everyone else in this town happy. I've been balancing being a sheriff and a daughter and a mother and so many other things, and all it's done has made me feel like I'm not good enough. And all my life, that's all I've ever been—a disappointment. Every single person I have ever loved or I thought loved me has abandoned me, or sent me away, or left me behind; and that's made me believe that I wasn't enough, that I wasn't worth it. Until I met you… You told me that you'd win my heart, Killian Jones, but what you didn't know was that it was already yours. I could barely admit it to myself at the time and certainly not to you, not there in Neverland. You did it by loving me for just being Emma, by making sure that you never left my side. For the first time ever, someone loved me and didn't leave me; in fact, they believed in me so much, that I started to believe in myself.

"I was enough, for once. And I'm sorry that I let everybody else distract me and get in the way, but I was still so afraid that you couldn't possibly be real. We're both so stubborn, and we'll probably fight all the time and drive each other crazy, but I'd rather fight with you than pretend to be happy with anyone else. I just hope that you can forgive me, and I'm not too late." She drops her hands from his face and looks away again, as if shocked by the powerful emotion of her own words or at least the number of them. Her arms wrap around her stomach again, trying to hide, but he won't have any of that. He slips his left arm around her back to pull her body closer and lifts his hand to her chin. He searches her eyes for the truth and finds the fear and uncertainty, but also the love he's been yearning for.

"There's nothing to forgive, Emma; I waited for you for more lifetimes than I'd care to count; I just didn't know it at the time. I'd wait for you-" She pulls him down to her, pressing their foreheads together lightly.

"I think we've done enough waiting, Killian." He nods, skimming his nose along hers before kissing her again. This time, their lips meet in the aching tenderness of the moment, in the realization that destiny has had a hand in shaping them and bringing them together. Every pain and heartache, every triumph and joy, has all served a larger purpose. A sense of awe and wonder fills every brush of skin against skin. When she slips off his coat, she does so slowly, so that she can marvel at the hard muscles encased in warm flesh—earned through back-breaking labor and years of honing his body into the lethal weapon it is today; not the hook, but the pirate.

He may only have the one hand, but he uses it wisely, tracing the curves and hollows of her bones and skin. She may be a savior and a sheriff, but she's also a woman—one he adores more every day, with every breath. They break their kiss as a matter of necessity, when Emma works to rid him of his shirt. She makes a whimper of protest when he doesn't return to her immediately, but rather kneels down in front of her. His eyes never leave hers as he presses a kiss to her belly, just above her navel. His lips trace a path that only he seems to know, gentle and reverent; and slowly, oh so slowly, he uses hand and hook to slip her pants down. She shivers at the heat and the chill racing across her skin all at once as the wet fabric slides past thighs, then knees, then calves. He urges her hands to his shoulders so that he can help her step out of them, and again, every touch seems more than flesh meeting flesh.

With a gentle tug from him, the towel falls from her shoulders, and he continues what he started, warming and drying her skin with every swipe. "Killian, you don't…"

"Shh… Just let me care for you, love." He places another kiss to the juncture of her hip and thigh, causing her to gasp in surprise and to groan with desire. She spears her fingers through his hair, lightly scratching and massaging his scalp while she plays with the soft, jet waves. It's much harder than it sounds, allowing someone else, someone you love, to perform such a basic task; it is profoundly intimate because only your parents or a lover should be allowed to see and touch you like this, and she has never experienced anything like it. So she focuses on the feel of his hair, on the way his lips and stubble cause her skin to tingle as he continues to caress her stomach and hips with them.

Emma lightly pulls on his hair to get his attention, before her hands drift up her body and behind her back to unclasp her bra. He lets out the faintest sigh as the material visibly slackens, just before she slides the straps down her arms. Puckishly, she lets the garment fall directly onto his face, causing him to mutter a curse while he bats it away and her to laugh at his distress. But she's rewarded by the visible rise of heat and lust in his eyes when he finally sees all of her bare before him. And yet, there's something innocent about that look as well—an undiluted amazement like a child making a discovery. It's a look she's heard about from others, read about in paperback romance novels, but never seen directed at her. It makes her feel cherished, treasured, wanted, needed.

Killian must read something in her eyes, because when she starts to lean forward to kiss him, he's already surging up to meet her. He catches her off balance, stepping up between her thighs and wrapping her legs around his waist as he stands. He takes a few short steps and then launches her onto the bed; Emma smiles at him as she crawls backwards to the pillows—a Cheshire cat grin that's the twin of his own. He watches her stretch contentedly, purposely writhing her body against the crisp linens for her own stimulation and his, while he makes quick work of the laces on his trousers. Years of practice mean that he's just as bare as she is in a second. He catches the slight hitch in breathing, the yearning in her eyes as she shamelessly looks at him. He leans forward until his knees and then his hand and hook encounter the bed, catching her left foot and pulling it up so he can kiss her ankle before resting in on his shoulder.

Her gaze never wavers, never retreats from his as he presses soft kisses up her leg; the innocence of those brushes contrast with the desire burning like two blue flames and the very obvious direction he's heading. When he gets to mid thigh, his kisses become more flagrant—using lips and teeth and tongue. Emma can't hold back her tiny whimpers of longing anymore, his every movement fueling a need that keeps growing. She's trembling and wet—the musky, quintessentially feminine smell of her arousal almost breaks through his control. He rests his head against her thigh, gazing up at her across the length of her body. "The things I want to do with you, Emma Swan… Promise me something, love; just for tonight at least. No more talk of "one time things" and no running off on me while I'm asleep. The finer details can wait… But promise me that for tonight, I don't have to worry that I'll wake to an empty bed. Please?"

The note of uncertainty, the fear of pain that's laced through his voice no matter how hard he tried to conceal it, tears at her heart, but she knows that it's a scar that she put there and one that she needs to heal. She threads her fingers through the hair on his forehead, brushing it away from his adoring eyes. "I promise. I won't run off, and when you wake up tomorrow, I'll still be here."

There's no room for doubts between them now. Killian crawls up her body, kissing along her collarbone and up her neck to her jaw. She lets her hands roam freely, encouraging the attention being paid to her throat by seeking out the places he likes most to be touched. It feels so right—to have his weight pressing her into the mattress and her legs wrapped around him. She slides her feet along the back of his knees and calves, eliciting a shiver from him. He sucks her earlobe into his mouth, biting down carefully and tugging; when he lets go, she returns the favor, letting her tongue play with his earring. She laughs at him when he growls and swears that he mutters the word pirate under his breath. But it's her turn to shiver as his fingers skim down the valley between her breasts, across her stomach, and past her navel. "I wish you could see yourself now, Emma—so beautiful! I've seen many shores and many wondrous sights, but here, with just a few candles and your glorious curls tumbling over my pillows… Nothing in all the realms can compare to you, love. Are you sure you aren't some vision, some strange goddess sent to ensnare a mere mortal?"

Her heart swells and shatters at the pure, honest adoration in his tone and the worshipful awe in his eyes. He means every word, every syllable, as if he's the lucky one; as if he isn't the one who helped fill the cracks in her soul and fit her broken pieces to his. With so many emotions swirling through her, she can only shake her head and beg him with her body to never let go. She shifts her hips against his, letting him know exactly how ready she is for him. He finally slides one finger inside her, and she can't help the moan that slips through her throat when she throws her head back. After a few long, sure strokes, she feels him retreat only to line himself up at her entrance. She bites her lip and makes the most erotic little mewl, eyes still shut. "Look at me, Emma."

She shakes her head the littlest bit and smiles. He chuckles at her stubbornness, then his lips turn up in a smirk of his own. With exaggerated slowness, he brings his finger to his mouth and loudly sucks her juices off it. There's no need to fake his moan at the taste of her, but it does have the effect that Killian had hoped it would. He sees the jade shimmer of her eyes. He hitches her left leg so it's wrapped securely around his waist, and then slides the first inch of his cock inside her. Emma's eyes go wide with shock and pleasure, and her whimper as he retreats is pained. His thrusts are achingly slow, retreating fully only to slide back in just a little bit further each time. She keeps trying to squirm, to buck him off and flip him onto his back so that she can control the pace. Her whimpers become petulant and frustrated, and she's positively glaring at him now; all of which leaves him smug and amused. "If there's one thing I've learned as a pirate, love, it's that unlocking the secrets of buried treasure can be a long, painfully arduous task."

"Killian!" His grin becomes positively stunning, even if it is laced with amusement at her expense.

"Mmm…There's a good girl! I love the way my name sounds on your lips—desperate, wanton. Tell me what you want, darling." He traces her collarbone with playful nips that he then soothes with his tongue. At the sound of his name, he put a little more power behind each thrust, went a little deeper. Now that she's back to her inarticulate, breathy cries, he slows and teases he with shallow pumps of his hips.

"God, Killian! You! I need you!"Her voice hitches when his mouth goes lower, and he sucks on her slightly puckered nipple. He drags his teeth gently along the sensitive flesh, laving it with his tongue. He murmurs nonsense, words of praise against her skin that somehow resonate through her that she somehow can understand. Taking advantage of his distraction, she finally manages to get him on his back. The hooded gaze and knowing smile is pure siren, but he doesn't fear drowning in her. Emma laces their fingers together and places her right hand on his ribcage for balance. "I need you, Killian Jones. As long as it's just us, as long as you never let me go. You're all I'll ever want."

He pushes himself up, wrapping his arms tightly around her and pressing their chests together. He brushes the hair from her face and seals the bargain with a searing kiss. "I'll never leave you, Emma love; I'll never let you go, and I'll never love anything in the world more than you."

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_The Enchanted Forest- Nine Months Later_

"Just one more push, love. You can do this." Emma's panting breaths terrify him, even though he knows that they are perfectly normal. He had waited outside with a nervous Charming while _his_ wife had delivered twins just a few months past. The young prince and princess were asleep in their nursery, blissfully unaware that their older sister was bringing their niece or nephew into the world on the other side of the Summer Palace. Snow was sitting on the bed next to them, gripping her daughter's left hand and whispering her own encouragements. Killian had been slightly wary (and more than a little afraid) when she had asked him to be with her when she gave birth. _We made this baby together; the least we could do is be there together when we meet them for the first time._

Emma shrieks and gives one final push, her magic leaking out through her emotions to cause several gusts of wind that flicker with dust motes of power. She sags back into his embrace with exhaustion as the midwives do their work. In seconds, a little wailing cry sounds from the edge of the bed, delicate skin protesting even the gentle touch of carefully warmed wet cloths and then being bundled up. "It's a girl, your graces!"

With Killian's arms supporting hers, she reaches for their baby. His right hand comes up to brush at the still damp, dark wisps of hair that crown her tiny head. "Look what we did, Emma! Look what we made together!"


End file.
